Jinsei o tōrisugiru genshukuna rōjin (Solemn Old Man Passing Through Life)

There’s a small, vile pain in my heart that absorbs my soul to the extent of replacing it wholly. I am boring. I am a complete character of the true self; there is someone there, yet without me. I am merely inhabiting my body. The satisfaction comes from imagination: I re-do everything every day at similar times in the same places. I’m without knowledge, without soul. I’m not there anymore. I’m just inside-out at all times. I’ve died, and my soul has stagnated to my body. I feel the ghost inside me reaching forth and stretching my skin, but it cannot escape. My eyes are heavy. The true eyes are trying to escape from out of them. I am pervaded with daydreams of satisfaction and pleasure in the menial tasks of which I participate; I cannot manage new things. I am to be rendered a slave to the old; a traditional chattel, even. It is crying. Seething. Waiting for escape. Can I do it? Can I free it? No. I shall not. The searing spine inside my back is warping. I can feel every bone; the separate vertebrate scream. They cry. Their noses scrunch and their eyes dampen. They wail, however silently—a whimper. A stupid, silent whimper. It crawls down my spine. The cries. The very fair cry. I shall not release it. I despise it. But without pain I’m no one. I am completely without one. I am the sleeping man. He is not awake. Forever shall he sleep. I stare. The cells of my head release their pressure and stupefy my brain. I am foggy and confused; I am not old, just stupid. The old may fare as insignificant—I count myself among them. Don’t perceive it as solemnity. I am truthful. I understand it. All of it. You cannot deny the truth I understand. I am not sad. I am modestly con- fused. I cannot free him. I cannot wait to free him. I am perplexed and fragile. I break. It shines upon me, yet its death throes vaults of pain and darkness through my chest. I grieve without tears. Just nothing. Sinful. My throat is full of sounds. They won’t be released. My eyes scrunch and close towards the shape of tears; they don’t exist. I am going to regurgitate the stomach I ate at birth, and I am going to throw it into the ocean. The blackness will consume it. I will kill it. Let it beat. Let it beat. I shall no more. You are dead.

Anonymous (this story is not about me)